1. A state cannot, in the exercise of her taxing power, impose
upon the products of another state, brought within her limits for
sale or use, a more onerous burden or tax than upon like products
of its own territory, nor discriminate against a citizen by reason
of his being engaged in thus bringing or in selling them.
2. An ordinance of Baltimore, whereunder vessels laden with the
products of other states, are required to pay for the use of the
public wharves of that city, fees which are not exacted from
vessels landing thereat with the products of Maryland, is in
conflict with the Constitution of the United states.
3. Such fees, so exacted, must be regarded not as a compensation
for the use of the city's property, but as a mere expedient or
device to foster the domestic commerce of Maryland by means of
unequal and oppressive burdens upon the industry and business of
other states.
4. So far as it may be necessary to protect the products of
other states and countries from discrimination by reason of their
foreign origin, the power of the national government over commerce
with foreign nations and among the several states reaches the
interior of every state of the Union.
Section 4 of an Act of the General Assembly of Maryland of 1827,
chapter 162, entitled "An Act to appoint state wharfingers in the
City of Baltimore, and to authorize the collection of wharfage in
certain cases in said city" (Maryland Code of Public Local Laws,
art. 4, sec. 945), provides as follows:
"The Mayor and City Council of Baltimore shall be, and they are
hereby, empowered and authorized to regulate, establish, charge and
collect, to the use of the said mayor and city council, such rate
of wharfage as they may think reasonable, of and from all vessels
resorting to or lying at, landing, depositing, or transporting
goods or articles other than the productions of this state, on any
wharf or wharves belonging to said mayor and city council, or any
public wharf in the said city, other than the wharves belonging to
or rented by the state."
Pursuant to the authority conferred by said act, the mayor and
city council, on July 27, 1858, passed an ordinance "to regulate
the public wharves in the City of Baltimore," the provisions of
which, as found in the thirty-third and thirty-fifth sections of
art. 22 in the Baltimore City Code, are as follows:
Page 100 U. S. 435
"SEC. 33. All goods, wares, or merchandise, landed on the public
wharves from on board of any vessel or vessels lying at said
wharves . . . shall pay the following rates of wharfage for each
and every day the same may remain thereon . . . to be paid by the
owner or consignee, or in the event of there being none, the master
of the vessel, and all goods shipped from one vessel to another,
one-half to be paid by the shipper, bags of coffee, ginger, pepper,
or any other articles in similar bags, each one cent; bales of
merchandise, . . . &c., each four cents; barrels of every
description containing merchandise or otherwise, each two cents;
boxes of sugar, . . . &c., each three cents; . . . grain per
bushel, and all other articles sold by the bushel, other than the
product of the state of Maryland, one-half cent; grindstones, each
one cent,"
&c., "all other goods not enumerated in the above list to
pay in proportion."
"SEC. 35. All vessels resorting to or lying at, landing,
depositing or transporting goods or articles other than the
production of this state, on or from any wharf or wharves belonging
to the mayor and city council, or any public wharf in the said
city, other than the wharves belonging to or rented by the state,
shall be chargeable with the wharfage as fixed by this ordinance,
upon all goods or articles landed or deposited on any wharf or
wharves belonging to the said mayor and city council; and the
master or owner of the vessel so depositing, landing, or
transporting said goods or articles, shall be responsible for the
same."
The Act of the General Assembly of 1860, chapter 226, Code of
Public General Laws, art. 96, sec. 18, requires potatoes to be sold
in the State of Maryland "by weight, at the rate of fifty-six
pounds to the bushel," under penalty of a fine of ten dollars.
Sect. 6 Revised Ordinances of 1858, Baltimore City Code, art.
22, sec. 10, is as follows:
"It shall not be lawful for any vessel landing or receiving
cargo at any of the wharves within the limits of the city, which is
required to pay wharfage on cargo or vessel to the harbor masters
of the City of Baltimore, to leave the wharf where said vessel
receives or discharges her cargo, without furnishing said harbor
master, upon application, with his manifest or bills of lading of
cargo, and paying the wharfage on the same, under a penalty of $20,
to be collected, as other debts are collected, from the captain,
commander, owner, or consignees of said vessels so offending. "
Page 100 U. S. 436
In June, 1876, Edward T. Guy, a resident in and citizen of the
County of Accomac, in the State of Virginia, arrived at the City of
Baltimore with the schooner
George S. Powell, of which he
was captain and part owner, laden with a cargo of potatoes raised
and produced in the State of Virginia, and landed said cargo,
amounting to two hundred and twenty bushels, on Pratt Street wharf,
belonging to said city, not "that part of Pratt Street wharf
reserved." Thereupon the harbormaster demanded of him the sum of
$4.40 wharfage upon said potatoes so landed; and payment thereof
being refused, the City of Baltimore brought this action of debt,
to recover the penalty of $20, imposed by art. 22, sec. 10, of the
city code,
supra. The defendant appeared, and judgment for
$20 penalty and costs having been rendered against him, he appealed
to the Baltimore City Court, at the trial wherein he prayed the
court to grant, as the law of the case, the following
propositions:
1st, that the Act of the General Assembly of Maryland of 1827,
c. 162, sec. 4, and the portions of the ordinances of the mayor and
city council passed thereunder, which impose a special wharfage
charge on extra-state grown products, are repugnant to the third
clause of the eighth section of art. 1 of the Constitution of the
United states, and unlawful.
2d, that the Act of the General Assembly of Maryland of 1827, c.
162, sec. 4, and the portions of the ordinances of the mayor and
city council passed thereunder, which impose a special wharfage
charge on extra-state grown products, are repugnant to the second
clause of the tenth section of art. 1 of the Constitution of the
United states, and unlawful.
3d, that the Act of the General Assembly of Maryland of 1827, c.
162, sec. 4, and the portions of the ordinances of the mayor and
city council passed thereunder, which impose a special wharfage
charge on extra-state grown products, are an infringement upon the
rights, privileges, and immunities of the appellant, claimed under
the first clause of the second section of art. 4 of the
Constitution of the United states, and are unlawful.
The court having refused to grant said propositions and affirmed
the judgment below, Guy sued out this writ of error.
Page 100 U. S. 437
MR. JUSTICE HARLAN delivered the opinion of the Court.
In
Woodruff v.
Parham, 8 Wall. 123, we had occasion to consider
the constitutional validity of an ordinance of the City of Mobile
under the provisions of which had been assessed, for municipal
purposes, a tax upon sales in that city of certain goods and
merchandise, the product of states other than Alabama. The
ordinance, in its application to articles carried into Alabama from
other states, was assailed as being inconsistent with the
constitutional inhibition upon the states levying imposts or duties
on imports or exports -- with the power of Congress to regulate
commerce with foreign nations and among the several states -- and
with that clause which declares that the citizens of each state
shall be entitled to all the immunities and privileges of citizens
of the several states.
Touching the first of these propositions it was ruled that
the
Page 100 U. S. 438
term import, as used in sec. 10, art. I, of the Constitution,
had reference to articles imported from foreign countries, and not
to such as were brought from one of the states of the Union into
another. In the argument,
Brown v.
Maryland, 12 Wheat. 419, was cited in support of
the proposition that the whole ordinance, in its application to
articles brought from other states to Mobile for sale, was an
unauthorized regulation of interstate commerce. Upon that branch of
the case, we said:
"If the Court there [in
Brown v. Maryland] meant to say
that a tax levied on goods from a sister state, which was not
levied on goods of a similar character produced within the state,
would be in conflict with the clause of the Constitution giving
Congress the right to regulate commerce among the states, as much
as the tax on foreign goods, then under consideration, was in
conflict with the authority to regulate commerce with foreign
nations, we agree to the proposition."
In a subsequent portion of our opinion in
Woodruff v.
Parham, it was said:
"But we may be asked, is there no limit to the power of the
states to tax the produce of other states brought within their
borders? And can they so tax them as to driver them out or
altogether prevent their introduction or their transit over their
territory? The case before us is a simple tax on sales of
merchandise imposed alike upon all sales made in Mobile, whether
the sales be made by a citizen of Alabama or of another state and
whether the goods sold are the products of that state or of some
other. There is no attempt to discriminate injuriously against the
products of other states, or the rights of their citizens, and the
case is not, therefore, an attempt to fetter commerce among the
states, or to deprive the citizens of other states of any privilege
or immunity possessed by citizens of Alabama. But a law having such
operation would, in our opinion, be an infringement of the
provisions of the Constitution which relate to those subjects, and,
therefore, void."
In
Hinson v.
Lott, 8 Wall. 148, we upheld a statute of Alabama
imposing taxes upon the sale of spirituous liquors within its
limits upon the ground that it did not discriminate against the
products of other states, and only subjected them to the same
taxation imposed upon similar articles manufactured
Page 100 U. S. 439
in that state. Had the statute been susceptible of a different
construction, it would have been held to be repugnant to the
Constitution.
In
Ward v.
Maryland, 12 id. 418, we examined the provisions of
a statute of Maryland which, among other things, required of
persons, not permanent residents of that state, before selling or
offering for sale within the limits of the City of Baltimore, and
goods, wares, or merchandise whatever, other than agricultural
products and articles manufactured in that state, to obtain a
license therefor. The amount exacted for such license was larger
than the statute required of resident traders engaged in like
business. In declaring the statute to be repugnant to the federal
Constitution, we said that,
"inasmuch as the Constitution provides that the citizens of each
state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of
citizens in the several states, it follows that the defendant might
lawfully sell or offer or expose to sale, within the district
described in the indictment, any goods which the permanent
residents of the state might sell or offer or expose for sale in
that district, without being subjected to any higher tax or excise
than that exacted by law of such permanent residents."
Upon the same ground, in the more recent case of
Welton v.
State of Missouri, 91 U. S. 275, we
held void a statute of Missouri imposing a peddler's license tax
upon persons going from place to place to sell patent and other
medicines, goods, wares, or merchandise, except books, charts,
maps, and stationery, not the growth, product, or manufacture of
that state, and which did not impose a like tax upon the sale of
similar articles, the growth, product, or manufacture of
Missouri.
In view of these and other decisions of this court, it must be
regarded as settled that no state can, consistently with the
federal Constitution, impose upon the products of other states,
brought therein for sale or use, or upon citizens because engaged
in the sale therein, or the transportation thereto, of the products
of other states, more onerous public burdens or taxes than it
imposes upon the like products of its own territory.
If this were not so, it is easy to perceive how the power of
Congress to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the
several states could be practically annulled, and the equality
Page 100 U. S. 440
of commercial privileges secured by the federal Constitution to
citizens of the several states be materially abridged and impaired.
"Over whatever other interests of the country," said Mr.
Webster,
"this government may diffuse its benefits and blessings, it will
always be true, as matter of historical fact, that it had its
immediate origin in the necessities of commerce; and for its
immediate object, the relief of those necessities, by removing
their causes, and by establishing a uniform and steady system."
But state legislation such as that indicated in the cases which
have been cited, if maintained by this court, would ultimately
bring our commerce to that "oppressed and degraded state," existing
at the adoption of the present Constitution, when the helpless,
inadequate Confederation was abandoned and a national government
instituted with full power over the entire subject of commerce,
except that wholly internal to the states composing the Union.
How far the principles enunciated in the foregoing cases control
the determination of the one before us, we now proceed to
inquire.
By an act of the General Assembly of Maryland, passed in 1827,
authority was given to the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore to
regulate, establish, charge, and collect to their use such rate of
wharfage as they might think reasonable, of and from all vessels
resorting to or lying at, landing, depositing, or transporting
goods or articles, other than the products of that state, on any
wharf or wharves belonging to that municipal corporation, or any
public wharf in the city other than the wharves belonging to or
rented by the state, and that part of Pratt Street Wharf,
theretofore reserved for the use of the citizens of that state.
Maryland Code of Public Local Laws, art. 4, sec. 945.
In pursuance of that act the city, by its constituted
authorities, in the year 1858, passed an act regulating the public
wharves. By its thirty-third section it is declared that all goods,
wares, or merchandise landed on the public wharves from on board
any vessels lying at said wharves, or placed thereon for the
purpose of shipment or exposure for sale,
other than the
product of the state of Maryland, shall pay wharfage according
to certain rates therein prescribed. The thirty-fifth
Page 100 U. S. 441
section declares that
"All vessels belonging to or lying at, landing, depositing, or
transporting goods or articles other than the production of this
state, on or from any wharf or wharves belonging to the mayor and
city council, or any public wharf in the said city, other than the
wharves belonging to or rented by the state, shall be chargeable
with the wharfage as fixed by this ordinance, upon all goods or
articles landed or deposited on any wharf or wharves belonging to
the said mayor and city council; and the master or owner of the
vessel so depositing, landing, or transporting said goods or
articles, shall be responsible for the same."
The ordinance contained other sections providing for its
enforcement.
The appellant Guy, a resident citizen of Accomac County,
Virginia, was engaged in the year 1876 in sailing a schooner, of
which he was master and part-owner, from the county to Baltimore,
laden with potatoes raised in Virginia. In June of that year, he
landed his vessel at one of the public wharves belonging to the
city (not that part of the Pratt Street wharf reserved), and
discharged therefrom two hundred and twenty barrels of potatoes.
Under the authority of the foregoing statute and ordinance, the
city harbormaster demanded of him the payment of $4.40 as wharfage.
He refused to comply with that demand, and, being sued by the city,
judgment was rendered against him in the court of a justice of the
peace, which was affirmed by the City Court of Baltimore, the
highest court of Maryland in which a decision of the case could
have been had.
It is admitted that such wharfage dues are not and never have
been assessed against parties or vessels bringing to that port
potatoes or other articles grown in the state of Maryland.
The argument in support of the statute and ordinance upon which
the judgment below rests is that the city, by virtue of its
ownership of the wharves in question, has the right, in its
discretion, to permit their use to all vessels landing thereat with
the products of Maryland, and that those operating vessels, laden
with the products of other states, cannot justly complain, so long
as they are not required to pay wharfage fees in excess of
reasonable compensation for the use of the city's property.
Page 100 U. S. 442
This proposition, however ingenious or plausible, is unsound
both upon principle and authority. The municipal corporation of
Baltimore was created by the state of Maryland to promote the
public interests and the public convenience. The wharf at which
appellant landed his vessel was long ago dedicated to public use.
The public for whose benefit it was acquired, or who are entitled
to participate in its use, are not alone those who may engage in
the transportation to the port of Baltimore of the products of
Maryland. It embraces, necessarily, all engaged in trade and
commerce upon the public navigable waters of the United states.
Every vessel employed in such trade and commerce may traverse those
waters without let or hindrance from local or state authority; and
the national Constitution secures to all so employed, without
reference to the residence or citizenship of the owners, the
privilege of landing at the port of Baltimore with any cargo
whatever, not excluded therefrom by, or under the authority of,
some statute in Maryland enacted in the exertion of its police
powers. The state, it will be admitted, could not lawfully impose
upon such cargo any direct public burden or tax because it may
consist, in whole or in part, of the products of other states. The
concession of such a power to the states would render wholly
nugatory all national control of commerce among the states, and
place the trade and business of the country at the mercy of local
regulations, having for their object to secure exclusive benefits
to the citizens and products of particular states. But it is
claimed that a state may empower one of its political agencies, a
mere municipal corporation representing a portion of its civil
power, to burden interstate commerce by exacting from those
transporting to its wharves the products of other states wharfage
fees, which it does not exact from those bringing to the same
wharves the products of Maryland. The city can no more do this than
it or the state could discriminate against the citizens and
products of other states in the use of the public streets or other
public highways. The City of Baltimore, if it chooses, can permit
the public wharves, which it owns, to be used without charge. Under
the authority of the state, it may also exact wharfage fees,
equally, from all who use its improved wharves, provided such
charges do not exceed
Page 100 U. S. 443
what is fair remuneration for the use of its property.
Pocket Company v. St. Louis, supra, p.
100 U. S. 423;
Vicksburg v. Tobin, supra, p.
100 U. S. 430;
Packet Company v. Keokuk, 95 U. S.
80. But it cannot employ the property it thus holds for
public use so as to hinder, obstruct, or burden interstate commerce
in the interest of commerce wholly internal to that state. The fees
which it exacts to that end, although denominated wharfage dues,
cannot be regarded, in the sense of our former decisions, as
compensation merely for the use of the city's property, but as a
mere expedient or device to accomplish, by indirection, what the
state could not accomplish by a direct tax,
viz., build up
its domestic commerce by means of unequal and oppressive burdens
upon the industry and business of other states.
Such exactions, in the name of wharfage, must be regarded as
taxation upon interstate commerce. Municipal corporations, owning
wharves upon the public navigable waters of the United states, and
quasi-public corporations transporting the products of the
country cannot be permitted by discriminations of that character to
impede commercial intercourse and traffic among the several states
and with foreign nations.
In the exercise of its police powers, a state may exclude from
its territory, or prohibit the sale therein of any articles which,
in its judgment, fairly exercised, are prejudicial to the health or
which would endanger the lives or property of its people. But if
the state, under the guise of exerting its police powers, should
make such exclusion or prohibition applicable solely to articles,
of that kind, that may be produced or manufactured in other states,
the courts would find no difficulty in holding such legislation to
be in conflict which the Constitution of the United states.
The power of the national government over commerce with foreign
nations and among the several states is broad and comprehensive. It
reaches the interior of every state of the Union, so far as it may
be necessary to protect the products of other states and countries
from discrimination by reason of their foreign origin.
Brown v.
Maryland, 12 Wheat. 419.
Nothing can be clearer than that the statute of Maryland and the
ordinance of the City of Baltimore, in the respects
Page 100 U. S. 444
adverted to, are in conflict with the power of Congress over the
subject of commerce.
The judgment is reversed, with directions to dismiss the action
against the appellant, with his costs against the city.
So ordered.
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WAITE, dissenting.
I cannot concur in this judgment. We have decided that a
municipal corporation may collect reasonable compensation for the
use of its improved public wharves and landing places. Such a
charge is in no just sense a tax or burden. The State of Maryland
has seen fit to prohibit the City of Baltimore from making any such
charge for landing and depositing the products of the state. That
was all the state undertook to do. I am unable to bring my mind to
the conclusion that the Constitution of the United states makes
this the equivalent of a provision that all wharfage at the public
wharves belonging to the city shall be free so long as the law as
it now stands is in force.
